The website I am working on needs to abide by the Vic gov usability criteria which states that ALT tags for spacers etc need to be ALT=" " (note the space) rather than ALT="", which is what I see that rich:column and rich:spacer generates now. Their rationale for this is that for ALT=“” "some screen-readers will read the SRC tag of the image".

What is involved in editing and re-compiling source if I need to do this anyway? I have asked the client to reconsider this option, but I know what way I would decide if it's a choice between IE and ugly hovers vs screen readers reading out URLs.